Real Work Conversations

The other day, I was showing a coworker a REST api that I recently discovered and had been playing around with. I got a bit excited and lapsed into Previous-to-previous-employerspeak, and pronounced url like "Earl". This follows:

cw: The what?

me: Earl... sorry, a pronunciation that I got from a former job, I mean U R L.

cw: Don't ever do that again.

me: (laughs)

An update -- What is happening, projects, and stuff...

So, I discovered Monday that I'm no longer employed; that's always fun. On the bright side, it's an opportunity to find work closer to me, and possibly better pay.

I at one point started the design for a CPU, it's still in the back of my mind, and I'll get back to it.... eventually. And, I'm currently having a bit of fun trying to figure out how to separate copper sulfate from what appears to be a binder to keep it from crystallizing out of the solution. It's this that I want to talk about.

So, I picked up a bottle of algaecide at a store because it contained copper sulfate. I immediately knew something wasn't quite right, because the solution was green, rather than the characteristic blue that copper sulfate has. So, I looked on the ingredients, and most of the contents of the bottle are "stabilizers", polyacrylate, and another chemical that's escaping my memory at the moment. I went ahead and attempted to drive off the water, and see what happens. What I wound up with was essentially a useless green goo that smelled similar to something I had played around with as a kid, friendly plastic. I've given up on this being a useful form of copper sulfate to work with, the goo binds everything, I had a little luck with acetone, but the yield made it pointless.

There's a lesson here: If you're an amateur chemist looking for copper sulfate to grow blue crystals, buy the root killer stuff. It's already crystalline, and doesn't have the binders.

The sad state of science

This post illustrates in so many ways what is wrong with our world today. To continue stereotyping, and to continue to engrave the idea of blatant consumerism rather than real discovery and science simply disturbs me on so many levels.

I couldn't agree more with Bree. We should cultivate the culture of discovery in all kids, whether they are boys or girls. Arguably, one of the most significant discoveries in the 20th century was made by a woman, and that discovery brought about the nuclear age. (Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing is another matter all-together. That's what the governments did with the discovery...) which among other things helped broaden our understanding of physics, brought about a powerful new source of energy, and gave us life-saving cancer treatments.

Mock Ramblings

Some shameless promotion of a friend's blog:

Mock Ramblings

He's a writer, and posts some rather clever series. If you haven't read any of his writing, you really should! It's good. Real good. One of my favorite (though they haven't made an appearance recently) is Reflections of a Deranged Cultist. Formatted as hijacked blog postings, the deranged cultist, and no sometimes his love interest make postings about the goings on in a secret Cthulhu worshiping cult. What could be more fun? A steel sphere filled with angry porcu-bats, that's what!  

Ill

I'm finally feeling normal again. What a relief!

For the past several days I've felt rather ill. Some kind of cold, or flu-like thing. I always relish feeling better after a minor illness like this. I feel as of I could take over the world.

Being sick, and having a baby in the house is an odd thing. For one, you can't just build a bubble around the child; it's just not practical. You don't want to get your child sick, but at the same time you need to take care of the baby and make sure he's fed, entertained, and clean. Entertaining baby is usually easy, but becomes a chore when all you want to do is sleep, and find some way of clearing your sinuses. I sympathize with my wife, who has had the brunt of taking care of the baby since I've been sick.

Interestingly, while my wife is now showing signs of the flu of doom, baby is just as well as can be. Odd, I figured it was a sure thing that he would get it. I'll count my blessings for that one.

Yesterday I realized we ran out of daytime cold medicine, so I figured I'd grab one of those 2-dose sample packs at the convenience store on the way to work. They didn't have anything I needed, so I headed to the local 24-hour drugstore. They have what I'm looking for, but it boasts "Now psuedoephedrine free". Fine, I'll go to the pharmacy counter and inquire about the real stuff. They have Nyquil with the real stuff, but not Dayquil. So, I grab a pack of the lesser stuff. The new decongestant isn't nearly as effective as the original kind, and I'm willing to sign a log book that will be examined by the DEA just to get the most effective medication.

Travelin'

We decided long ago that over the labor day weekend we would go up to Oklahoma City to visit my grandmother. This was our first time traveling with the baby, so this will be an interesting experiment. The way up wasn't too bad, and we had a rather nice visit. One of my aunts also arrived, and brought KFC for dinner. We had dinner then headed home. The way back was a bit more challenging as it was getting late, and the baby was entering his trademark fussy time of the day, which meant most of the trip home was punctuated with crying, and constant discussion as to whether we stop now or wait. He quieted, we waited. We passed one potential stopping area, and he'd start up again.

I also, on a wild lark decided to try stopping at one of those scenic turnouts. Now I understand why my dad never stopped at one when I begged him to. It was rather boring and the scenery was nothing to write home about. I took pictures anyway. We stopped at the Texas visitors center at around dusk and got a couple nice pictures, though, which sort of made up for it.

They banned tag!

Remember the game of tag? Someone would be tagged, they would be "it", and run after someone else to tag them and make them it. Apparently, this is a bad thing now. It's considered chasing and harassing to some. My God. I remember when I was a kid we would play tag. I always wound up as being "it" it always annoyed me, because I wasn't a very fast runner. Yes -- I would get pulled into the game without really wanting to participate, but the furthest thing from my mind was to complain that I was being chased and harassed.

It seems our general inflated sense of entitlement is rubbing off on our kids. How sad.

An observation ...

On several occasions I've seen these things placed in the seat portion of the grocery cart. It seems people these days are becoming more and more germophobic. Seriously, they put these on their carts to keep their precious little spawn away from any and all germs.

What they're really setting their child up for is being seriously ill later on. A child who is not exposed to at least some illness-causing agents will not be able to build any immunity. Using something like this really is a disservice to your child^1,2.

My belief? These parents fall into one of 2 categories: Those who are true germophobes who's cleaning-product shelf looks that of a hospital ward in charge of taking care of immunocompromised patients, and those who just simply don't want a sick, whiny kid with a runny nose, they also have similar shelves in their homes, sanitizer at every sink, and will generally sneer at you, should you get too near their precious child.

I don't quite understand this culture of needing to raise your child in a perfectly sanitized pristine environment. And FYI, those covers are likely to be even more of a breeding ground for dangerous bacteria than the smooth plastic and metal of a shopping cart.

New life...

... and apparently new blogger.

Well, after a long hiatus, which seems to happen frequently with me, I decided to make an entry. We have a baby on the way, and I couldn't be happier.

What to do? So many things we will need, so much thought about this new life. I'm both excited and terrified. It was cool to see him (yes, its a boy!) on the ultrasound, and was just completely amazed.

Not much has been happening on other fronts.

Magic

Reading an article on Snopes, I'm reminded of a time when I was chosen from the audience to be part of a magic trick.

I was not in on the act. I was just as dumbfounded as the remainder of the audience. And then it came: The act was performed aboard a cruise ship. Which meant everyone who had seen me at some point had a chance to corner and question me about the trick.

My response: "No. I don't know how he did it, but it certainly was cool."

There are probably people to this day who thought I was part of the trick. Not every magic trick has a preselected participant in the audience.

Returning to the much neglected, much ignored Blog.

Okay, back to blogging.

I started this account more than a year ago, and haven't added anything. So, why not return to blogging? and here, since I already have the account?

Anyway, to start, I think this will be less technical, and more me this time around. Heck, I need some sort of outlet, somewhere where I can put stuff down. So why not?

There are some subjects want to discuss: The whole sort of general mish-mash of the world, my weight loss journey, a sprinkling of technical stuff, and well, anything I feel like, really.

Anyway, what better way to start than to state I've started working on my weight loss for the last 3 weeks, I've already dropped approximately 12lbs, and since changing the way I eat, I feel much better. More on this later...